CONSCIOUSNESS, NOT A SYSTEM

In today’s era, Japan’s remarkable development has become an accepted fact. Japan didn’t reach this level of progress through protests, but by raising awareness among its people. An expert on Japanese affairs, Robert Hayes, has written that Japan has made quality a core part of how its individuals think. He expressed this idea in these words:

“You don’t get quality into a product by inspection, you have to build it in.” (Hindustan Times, December 28, 1986, page 9)

That is, you cannot achieve quality production solely through the inspectors’ examinations. You must instill a sense of quality in every worker.

After World War II, considering what America had done to Japan, America was seen as Japan’s enemy number one. When Japan started its post-war rebuilding, the first step was to rid its people of negative thinking. They interacted with Americans, rising above feelings of hatred and revenge. As a result, Japan avoided wasting its energy on unnecessary negative actions. By overcoming this negative mindset, Japan effectively turned its enemy into a source of strength.

America’s Bell Laboratories were the first to invent the transistor. If the Japanese had harboured feelings of hatred against America, they would not have been able to learn from them. However, because of their positive mindset, they quickly adopted this invention. Before Bell Laboratories could produce transistors in large quantities, the Japanese had already manufactured them on a massive scale, capturing the global market. Similarly, fax technology was discovered in America, but Japan was the first to commercially benefit from it.